By Dwaipayan Choudhury
On a day when India dominated South Africa in the Kolkata Test, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) delivered its own emphatic performance in Bihar, sweeping the Assembly elections with a three-fourth majority.
A win for the ruling NDA was on expected lines but the scale of the victory surprised even the most optimistic member of the alliance, surpassing even Home Minister Amit Shah’s estimate of 160-odd seats. The NDA ended up bagging 201 out of 243 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the single-largest party with 89 seats – close to its 2010 record tally of 91. The JD(U) secured 85 seats, marking its strongest performance since 2010, when it had crossed the three-digit mark. Another ally, Chirag Paswan‘s LJP (RV) won 25 of the 29 seats it contested.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose popularity appears to have galloped after the subdued performance of the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bihar voters pitched for “Sushasan Babu” Nitish Kumar in big numbers, cementing his position as a formidable regional leader who has been able to dodge a bouquet of odds that includes a 20-year anti-incumbency. If sworn in again, which is now a certainty, this will be Kumar’s 10th stint as the state’s chief minister.
A high turnout of women, who outnumbered male voters by nearly 10 percentage points, also seems to have clinched the deal in favour of the BJP-led coalition. Women have always remained Kumar’s core support base.
Bihar – home to over 130 million people and more than 74 million voters – saw an overall voter turnout of 66.91%, a record in its electoral history.
The NDA’s tally comes in the backdrop of the BJP’s back-to-back wins in Delhi, Maharashtra and Haryana.
The opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance, comprising the RJD, the Congress and the Left parties, struggled to cross the 35-seat mark, a start contrast to its showing in 2020, when the RJD had emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats. It’s obvious that Tejashwi Yadav has not been able to shake off his father’s legacy of “jungle-raj”.
Hailing the massive win, Modi said the victory has given a new ‘MY — Mahila and Youth’ formula with the people destroying the “communal MY formula of the jungle raj people”.
Addressing party workers and supporters at the BJP headquarters here, Modi said Bihar is the land which gave India the pride of being the mother of democracy, and the same land has ensured that the people attacking democracy “bite the dust”.
“Bihar has shown again that lies are defeated and people’s trust wins,” Modi said.
In a post on X, Kumar said, “The people of the state have expressed their confidence in our government by giving us a massive majority. For this, I bow to all the esteemed voters of the state, and express my heartfelt gratitude and thanks.”
In his message, Shah said the landslide win for the NDA is the people’s stamp of approval on its work for development, women’s safety, good governance and the welfare of the poor.